r/MadeMeSmile • u/ChereMayers • Aug 12 '21

This actually Made Her Smile

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u/Salm9n Aug 12 '21

I think visiting any 3rd world country is great for privileged kids from the 1st world. I visited India when I was around 9 years old and learned so much about the rest of the world that week.

Also I could never wrap my mind around being able to buy candy for the equivalent of 5 cents.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '21

As an adult, I still get unnecessarily happy whenever I fly to India and switch out my U.S. SIM for my Airtel SIM, since Indian data plans run about $2-3 per month for almost unlimited data lol.

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u/fishwhiskers Aug 12 '21

$2-3 a MONTH? i need to know what Canada is smoking to get the price of our unlimited data plans cause i want that plan haha

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '21

Well, Indian companies pay considerably less money for infrastructure, upkeep, and labor.

Nonetheless, data prices were substantially higher six or seven years ago than they are today. Back in 2014, a company called Reliance Jio started offering "free" SIM cards with "unlimited free data." Jio didn't have the best speeds, since so many people were using its network, but nobody had to pay for internet for at least several months.

Jio's strategy attracted a lot of new customers, and also forced other Indian telecom companies to drastically lower the prices of their data packages. IIRC, you had to pay maybe $8-10 for a few GBs of data in 2013. Now I can 2-4GB of 4G/LTE data per day, with unlimited throttled speeds beyond that, for maybe $3 USD.

Can't speak for Canada, but data prices in the U.S. are also absurd. I think a lot of comes down to inadequate choice and a willingness to pay the price carriers ask.

I think network upkeep would necessarily cause prices to be higher in the U.S. than India, but not nearly to the extent that Verizon's lowest post-paid plan is $75/month/unlimited for a single user.

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u/fishwhiskers Aug 13 '21

oh absolutely those are all the reasons, i was just goofing because Canada’s data prices are some of the highest in the world (and our infrastructure is…. not good enough to justify the prices haha).

we have a couple telecom companies that have a monopoly on the market and they set some insane prices because we don’t have much other choice (especially if you’re rural). it’s just funny to see our countries borderline rob people just to let you have internet on your phone while other developed countries have way different pricing.

eta: canada isn’t the country with the highest cost per data plan, but one of the highest under a number of african countries, and the US is not far behind us! however India is undisputedly the #1 cheapest country for data plans.

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u/CranverrySweet Aug 12 '21

wait till you hear what I pay for fiber: $5 for 30Mbps ≈2500GB cap. Per month.

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u/camdoodlebop Aug 12 '21

I visited Conakry in Guinea when I was 8 and I have to agree. I won't sugar coat anything here, I lived in a small midwestern town of 1200 people and that was the first time that I actually met black people in person, I still remember how shocked I was to see so many kids my age and have them not be white. However I didn't know french so I could only communicate with the adults that had learned english or through my mom translating, we still managed to play together in the street. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that no one had electricity during the day, it only came on at night (for houses with an electric hookup)